A Man and His Hat
by DjDangerLove
Summary: Sam likes his hat. It gives him a sense of power and control. At least, he use to think so before this merry band of his came together. Or, yet another example of how a dysfunctional family is a perfect one.


Some days he's not sure who he is anymore.

To the west, the horizon is stealing away the remnants of the sun, casting the merry band of them into a crescent-mooned night. They're strangely scattered, each of them so strewn across the landscape of jutted rocks that there's not even a decent place to center a fire. He reckons that was their intended goal and decides to forgo the fire altogether because hell if he does anymore for the ungrateful lot of them.

Horne, bless him, must understand because he plops down beside him with a smoke rolled between his thick, extended fingers. "Go on, now. Lord knows you need it with this bunch," he says while twisting himself comfortable on the rock face extended out over the valley below.

Chisolm nods his gratefulness while pulling his hat from his head and discarding the posture of a man in charge. He wipes at his exposed brow, aware of the way his face looks younger without the coverage of a black brim, and takes the offered smoke. He waves away the light Horne proffers, choosing to study the cigarette in his hand instead.

There are faint, crimson patches coloring the outside that almost make the skin of his fingers burn. "Faraday's?" He asks, almost tempted to give it back.

"Figured he wouldn't be needin' a couple for a day or so. Boy's about as good at breathin' as a mule under water," Horne replies, taking a drag from his own lit smoke. He coughs around the exhale, but he's unashamed where most men would be. "I ain't never had a likin' for these things until I got myself mixed in with the likes of y'all. Don't worry," the tracker says, his tone changing so abruptly that it draws Sam's attention away from Faraday's blood-soaked cigarette. "He's alright. Gave him some sleepin' aid and promised him a good bottle of whiskey when he's able. I left out the part about a good floggin' on my part. I like the element of surprise."

Sam feels the corner of his mouth twitch upwards for the first time that day, but it feels tiring to do so. "He still needs to learn the art of a fair deal," he agrees. "Boy still thinks he earned that damned horse of his back, but everybody knows that horse ain't worth the lifetime of aches and the limp he got from that trick he done pulled up at Rose Creek."

Horne nods his head, letting out a high pitched accord. "But I do believe he was aiming to earn something more than just his horse back after that."

"Then what do you call what happened today? Far as I can tell, we ain't ever given him reason to think he's got to keep doing stuff like gettin' himself killed to be here," he counters, shoving the cigarette back at Horne like it's the noose that Bogue once tied around his neck.

Horne barely tucks it back into his breast pocket as if expecting he'll be in need of it soon despite the one still hanging between his lips. It bounces when he replies, "You ever wonder why you don't like taking off your hat?"

Sam pulls said covering from the ground beside him working his fingers around the brim. Something in this conversation is making him want it back on his head. "I don't like to squint when the sun's out," he offers, but damn if it doesn't sound like something a man like Power Dan would say.

"Maybe not, but there's no sunlight and you were about to put it on."

Chisolm wants to do something stupid like toss his hat aside or put it on despite himself, but Horne laughs all the same even when he remains still. "Listen, you need a sense of power, a sense of control. That ain't something you get from killing a man like Bogue or wearing a hat, but you did that and are still doing the other."

"That ain't why I set out to-"

"The hell it ain't. You tell them boys whatever you like, never show them that scar 'round your neck, or tell him how you prayed for their protection in that church the night before Bogue came. Makes no difference to me, because I know." Horne says, nodding his head like he's got a whole congregation agreeing with him.

"Point is, you need your hat because without it you think them boys will see you as somebody who's not in control or a position of power. You're afraid of 'em lookin' at you as more than their leader, 'cause the last time somebody did, you couldn't protect them."

Sam's fingers tighten around the brim of his hat and he can almost see the way his father did the same thing many years ago with worry and desperation.

"Faraday…he's the same way. Kind of. He ain't never had nobody give two shits about him, so he can't imagine why this lot would. He's got to earn it, like he's earned everything else. Those cards of his and, Heaven help us, luck that's… his hat if you will. Without it, you might consider him somebody else and that scares him more than dyin' does."

Sam's hat feels heavy in his hands like how he used to imagine it would feel as a child watching his father wear it, much too big for him now. There's a silence that settles around them, the kind that came when Horne knelt by his side in the church and prayed for their makeshift family. It's only broken up by the sound of wolves howling for each other in the depths of the night.

He glances over at Horne, fingers doing one more pass over the brim of his black hat before tossing it to the older man. "Can I have that smoke back?"

Horne seems a little surprised, whether at the fact that he's actually gotten through to one of them with his words or Sam giving him his hat, Chisolm isn't sure. He retrieves the smoke quickly though, so he believes it's the latter.

* * *

He finds Vasquez not where he'd last seen him. He's laid back alongside an overhang above Faraday, not so high so that he can't jump down to aide the gambler, or strangle him one. The outlaw waves at him, the scuff of his boots giving away his approach. Sam nods back, glancing down at a sleeping Faraday, the man he'd truthfully been looking for, settled among two bedrolls, one looking a lot like it belongs to the outlaw. Chisolm raises an eyebrow at the man dangling his legs above him.

"Ah," Vasquez grunts dismissively with a wave of his hand, his face a picture of his normal joviality despite the Spanish curses that flew from his mouth earlier that day. "He doesn't make sense so much, you know. Have to overlook it."

"Is that so?" Sam asks, tilting his head back a bit more to peer up at the younger man.

"Si, where's your hat?"

He ducks his head at that, sighing a bit as he meanders up to the overhang Vasquez is perched at. "Do I need it?"

The Mexican looks at him, mouth curling faintly the way it does when he's unsure of intentions. "The sun is not out, but that's never stopped you before."

"I see your point, but I've been talked at with enough reason tonight I reckon it's my turn," he replies, nudging Vasquez a little so that they can both sit on the ledge. "That was a stupid thing today."

"That's not reason, that's just the way he is."

"I'm not talkin' about Faraday," he counters, and he may not have his hat but that doesn't seem to matter to Vasquez because he suddenly looks a lot like that dangerous man he met a long time ago.

"He has to learn! Luck will not always be on his side!" The Spanish accented words fly out into the night like frightful birds from a well protected nest, good intentions but misguided.

Sam studies him, choosing his words carefully. "Sometimes we do things that we think are for others, but are only for ourselves."

"Like nearly drowning," he asks, shoving his head down in the direction of Faraday. "Just to cause a distraction?"

"It worked, didn't it? Don't give me that look, he'll get his reprimand from me in due time," Sam pacifies. "I was referring to-"

"I know what you were referring to," and suddenly the outlaw seems weary. "He….makes me so angry! Sometimes I….I don't understand him. It's worse than speaking two different languages! And I…I don't know how to explain it, to make him understand."

Sam looks down at Faraday passed out down below, bruises and cuts still visible from their earlier scuffle with bandits - and perhaps a few from Vasquez, but he's dry and breathing, even if a bit raggedly. "Make him understand what?"

Vasquez milks the silence around them, face heavy with words he doesn't want to say. "Que no," he tries, slipping back behind the protection of his native language, but thinks better of it given his recent comments of Faraday. "That I'm not worth dying for."

Sam huffs out a laugh, but it's gentle and kind and it seems to soothe Vasquez the way it used to do for his young sister when their father passed. "No, hijo, I don't reckon you'll ever convince him of that."

Vasquez blinks at him and he sobers just a bit. "Couldn't even convince me, what with all we've been through, but I don't think that's his reason."

"He doesn't have one, no?"

"He does, but I have in mind it's the same one behind you pummeling him earlier."

"Maybe he had it coming," Vasquez says, and it's exactly the way he said it when they'd first met but it means something else entirely.

"Regardless, it isn't that you two are speaking two different languages. You're just not listening to the whole picture."

"I can't decide if that is Commache or Horne gibberish. Either way, loco," the outlaw scoffs, pulling his legs up to stand on the ledge.

Sam follows him and takes the cigarette from his pocket. "Consider it Sam gibberish, advice if you're feeling generous."

He extends the smoke to Vasquez and catches the man's gaze with his own. "Give that back to him when you heed my words, will you?"

Vasquez takes it with hesitant hands and whispers, "Si."

* * *

Although he reckons sleep will evade him, he goes in search of a place to bed down for the night, but runs up on Goodnight cleaning his rifle of its own shine. Even though he had walked a ways away from Vasquez by winding down some boulders he can still look out between to cuts of rock and see the outlaw still standing guard over where Faraday sleeps. Craning his head a bit, he sees the glint of knives laid out on rock, fresh off a cleaning of their own and maybe he hears the wind carry the sound of arrows sharpening up above them.

Spread out as they may be, he may have misjudged how separated his men actually were. As if reading his thoughts and wanting to put his mind at ease, Goodnight looks up from his work and says, "Safe to assume Faraday's still sleepin' like the dead. Otherwise, we would've heard Vas start his Spanish poems up again."

Sam nods at the sharpshooter and feels a bit ridiculous doing so without his hat. Even though Robicheaux says nothing, the grin from the side of his mouth is as telling as ever. Chisolm clicks his teeth.

"Ah hell, Sam, it's a good look for you," he says, but the way his eyes drift to wherever Billy is makes Sam turn and leave.

When he wakes, he's more startled by the fact that he'd been asleep in the first place than he is by the loud bickering of his men.

* * *

"Would you quit mother henning me one minute and cursin' me the next? You damned Mexican! I don't know whether I want to shoot you, or my own self!"

"You'd better shoot me, carbón, seeing as how you've never been able to give us the pleasure of killing yourself with many attempts before."

"Woah, woah! Hey, no! Both of you stop it before you do something you can't take back."

Bless Goodnight for trying to be the sensible one, but Sam would be lying if he said he didn't want this to finally play out so that maybe they could move on from this. However, if the look on Faraday's face means anything, they're far from getting past this whole debacle.

"A little late for that, I'd say," the gambler says, voice a bit rough from coughing up river water the day before. With his limp a bit more prominent than usual, he disappears behind the curve of some rocks.

Sam eyes Vasquez across the way, alongside with the others. It's needless, though. The man will punish himself far more than any of them deem fit.

* * *

It's not hard to find Joshua. He didn't make it far around the rugged landscape and his coughing was loud enough to wake the dead. He's shuffling his cards between his hands, ignoring Sam entirely as he sits down beside him. Chisolm gives it a moment, wondering if Faraday will do himself some good and start talking on his own. When he starts seeing sleight of hand tricks, he sighs before reaching out and taking the deck.

"What the hell? Give those back!" Faraday demands, before breaking into another coughing fit. The cards are tucked neatly into Sam's breast pocket by the time he's recovered.

"You'll get them back, I don't aim to keep them. I just want to have a conversation."

"We can't do that unless you have my cards?"

"Not when I don't have your full attention," Sam agrees, and he tries hard to suppress the memories of his own father saying those words to him, but it's a lot harder to do when Faraday rolls his eyes much the way he used to.

"Well as long as you got my cards, I ain't going to be thinkin' about nothin' but gettin' them back unless you trade me something for them," Faraday says around a grin that says he thinks he's the smartest man in the game.

"Well, I reckon that's fair. I'd give you my hat, but seems Horne is holding onto it. Your cigarette he lifted from you, I gave to Vasquez. Anything worth a penny is back with my things, but I guess I could give you my bandana."

"I'd need to be completely soaked in whiskey to call that fair."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Sam says while untying the material from around his neck. He keeps his gaze on Faraday as he pulls it away. The younger man's light complexion goes pale as he turns with a grimace across his face. "Ain't too pretty to look at, is it?"

Faraday smoothes out his face, showing the true poker player he is, and turns back to Sam. "Is that….did Bogue do that to you? Before, I mean."

"Seems we got that in common," Sam concurs and extends the cloth to Faraday. "Go on now, hold on to that for me."

The gambler takes it with unsteady hands, twisting it between his fingers awkwardly. "Why'd you go and do that?"

"I told you, I just want to have a conversation," Sam repeats, then continues on when Faraday remains silent. "You know the real reason I went after Bogue?"

" "Cause he gave you that nice lookin' thing around your neck, killed your family, and aimed to do the same to other folk."

Pushing air through his nose, Chisolm shakes his head. "That's what I should've done it for, but deep down I….I did it because it gave me a sense of control, a sense of…power I didn't have when his men came through our town."

If that rubs Faraday the wrong way, if he thinks less of Sam, it doesn't show. His brow furrows though, fingers smoothing out the wrinkles in the material of the bandana and watching them bunch up again. "What about now that he's dead? That why you have us bounty hunting across the country? So you have power and control?"

"I thought so," he admits, and this time it does show on Faraday's face in a downward tug of his mouth."That is, until yesterday when you jumped into the river taking that bandit with you. I didn't feel power and control then. You know what I felt?"

Faraday slowly shakes his head no, purposely avoiding looking at the older man.

"I felt the same kind of fear and lawlessness that I felt when Bogue's men strung me up." Sam pulls the material gently from Joshua's hands and ties it back around his neck before handing Faraday his cards. He shuffles them once, but then seems to forget why he did so. "That's when I realized, the only time I ever felt like I had control and power, was when the people I care about….my family…is safe. And that….well, I guess that's something I'm afraid of."

Joshua catches his eyes quickly, as if maybe he misheard him or really is completely soaked in whiskey, but Sam holds it steadily. The older man knows well enough to expect a smart-ass response given the way Faraday's posture because stiff, almost defensive. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to tell you I'm afraid of the boogeyman or something?"

"If you're truly afraid of such a thing, sure, but I reckon you're more afraid of having the merry band of whatever we are and knowing how you deserve it, than anything else. Seems you think the price of admission is death, and son, I'm going to finally have to tell you that ain't the case."

Faraday grins at him, but not in a way he ever has before. "Couldn't of mentioned that before I charged the Gatling gun, huh?"

"Well, hell, somebody had to take that thing out and you were the only one crazy enough to offer," Sam explains.

"And the river? Couldn't have said anything then either?"

"Vasquez needed a good punching bag, he had a lot of pent up anger and it was really bringing the moral down. We thought it best to let you do the natural thing of pissing him off. Consider that part your price of admission."

Faraday throws his head back in delightful laughter, his shoulders much freer now that they don't seem to be weighted down so much, but then tilts his head curiously. "Vas….he's really sore with me, ain't he?"

"No more than he is with himself."

* * *

He likes to think that Faraday thought about what he said, maybe even took time to think through his own shit before coming to find Vasquez, but he knows by the way his hair pokes out in odd directions and the way his mouth works around a yawn that he probably just fell asleep. Regardless, the time spent apart seems to have sobered the both of them so that when Faraday nearly collapses beside the outlaw, the older man just reaches out and helps him sit with a soft, "Pausado, guero."

He feigns distraction by cleaning his guns, but with the others out hunting for food or taking a piss it's unusually quiet and their voices carry.

"Lo siento. I did not mean-"

"You never do, muchacho," Faraday cuts him off, but he's grinning and nudging his shoulder into Vasquez's. The outlaw allows it, but his serious expression remains.

"Promise me, guero," he pleads while pulling out the cigarette from the night before and extending it to the younger man with the blood showing. " You will not do such things anymore, there's nothing here worth this. I repeat, nothing!"

"Is that why you punched me after I nearly drowned?"

"Eh, more or less. You also stole my bottle of whiskey from my saddle the other day. I was very thirsty," Vasquez shrugs whiles sticking the cigarette into Farady's outside vest pocket and patting it. "No more swims for you, okay? I cannot lose anymore sleep to you."

Faraday winks at him, insinuating something more between them for a rise out of the other and gets a well deserved shove for his efforts. The gambler slides off the rock into Horne's abandoned bedroll. "Trust me, guero, you're too…damsel in distress for my taste," Vasquez teases, chuckling as Faraday finds Chisolm's hat discarded among the tracker's things and plops it down onto his head. "That's twice now, I've had to save you," he continues. "Three counting when Sam comes to reclaim his hat."

It's an odd thing between them. How one minute they're likely to kill each other and the next teasing each other only the way a brother could. He guesses it's a lot like how he's one person underneath the safety of his hat and somebody a little different without it.

He doesn't have much time to ponder that thought though, because Horne appears around the corner carrying a couple of logs just as Faraday begins to dramatically reenact his first meeting with Chisolm for a cackling Vasquez. He's just about to the part where he'd whispered in Power Dan's ear when Horne starts swatting at him with a thin switch he'd collected amongst firewood.

Sam makes his way over, trying to conceal his own amusement at the way Vasquez doesn't know whether to laugh more or be worried. Horne's in the middle of reprimanding Faraday for nearly drowning when Chisolm reaches out and reclaims his hat, causing the tracker and gambler to stop abruptly to stare at him.

"I told you, I don't like to squint when the sun is out," he says, while placing his hat back on his head.

Some days he's not sure who he is anymore, but today he'll be damned if he's the man that lets Faraday wear his hat.

* * *

AN: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think :)


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